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JOLIET, Ill. – Chase Elliott held off Trevor Bayne to win the Nationwide Series stop at Chicagoland Speedway on Saturday night.

Elliott had a strong car all day long for JR Motorsports, qualifying third and leading a race-high 85 laps. Bayne tried to chase him down on fresh tires in the final laps, but ran out of time.

Elliott’s third victory of the year, following wins at Texas and Darlington, moved him to the top of the series standings.

Kyle Larson was third, followed by Kasey Kahne and Ty Dillon to round out the top five.

Brian Scott, who started on the pole, finished sixth and earned $100,000 in the second event of the four-race “Dash 4 Cash” bonus program.

Kahne and Larson were the lone Sprint Cup regulars in the field on an off weekend for NASCAR’s top series. Everyone comes back to Chicagoland in September on the same weekend that the Chase for the Sprint Cup championship begins at the 1.52-mile oval.

The night began with a pair of Richard Childress Racing teammates in front after Scott and Dillon had the best showing in qualifying. It was Scott’s second pole of the season and No. 4 for his career. He won his first Nationwide Series pole at Chicagoland on Sept. 17, 2011.

Scott led for 20 laps before Elliott moved in front.

Erik Jones finished seventh in his Nationwide debut, driving Joe Gibbs Racing’s No. 20 Toyota. The 18-year-old Jones won the Truck Series race last week at Iowa in the No. 51 Kyle Busch Motorsports Toyota he shares with Busch. Jones also won a Truck race last year in Phoenix.

Jones is expected to make two more Nationwide starts in Matt Kenseth’s car this season.

Regan Smith, who led the series standings by eight points over Elliott Sadler coming into the day, started 15th after a disappointing qualifying session, and it just got worse during the race. He never got into the mix on his way to 16th place.

It was similar to last year, when Smith was on top of the series heading into the first stop at Chicagoland, and then slid into the infield on Lap 129 and finished 13th. He had the same finish in the September race at the same track.

Rosberg earns pole, Hamilton crashes

HOCKENHEIM, Germany – Formula One leader Nico Rosberg earned pole position for the German Grand Prix as Mercedes teammate Lewis Hamilton crashed out in qualifying on Saturday and will start 15th on the grid.

Rosberg completed the fastest lap on the Hockenheimring in 1 minute, 16.540 seconds in the third part of the session for what was also the weekend’s fastest time.

“Home race, to be on pole is fantastic,” the German said. “I would have preferred if it was an open fight with Lewis. I was a little less happy as a result [of Hamilton’s crash] because Lewis didn’t have a shot at it in the end, but all in all, yeah, a fantastic day up to now.”

Hamilton crashed in the first part of the session, leading to a seven-minute delay after the British driver spectacularly spun off the track and crashed into barriers at Turn 13. His right front brake disc failed.

Hamilton was checked out at the medical center and seemed relatively unscathed.

“I’ve got a little bit of pain but that’s what usually happens when you have a crash like that. Even if something’s broken, I’ll still be driving tomorrow,” the 2008 world champion said.

Rosberg said he wasn’t worried about having the same issue with his brakes as both drivers’ cars were fitted with different systems.

Valtteri Bottas and Felipe Massa completed a day to remember for Williams by finishing second and third, respectively.

“Well done to everyone but Mercedes is still ahead,” Bottas said. “I really felt I got everything out of the car today.”

Kevin Magnussen claimed a commendable fourth place for McLaren, and the Dane was followed by Red Bull’s Daniel Ricciardo and Sebastian Vettel in fifth and sixth.

“Other people were able to get more and more out of the track whereas we seemed to stabilize around a certain lap time,” Vettel said. “It’s a long race, anything can happen.”

Vettel’s optimism isn’t supported by recent history. Nobody has won from outside the top three starters at Hockenheim since the track was re-profiled in 2001.

IndyCar’s weekend doubleheader will be crammed into one day because Saturday’s race was called because of rain.

IndyCar has scheduled two, 75-lap races for Sunday. The first one will have a rolling start at 10:30 a.m. and the second one is set for a standing start at 4:15 p.m. The order for the second race will be set by points, as of Saturday. Both races will be telecast on NBCSN.

IndyCar officials originally had decided to make Saturday’s race a 90-minute or 65-lap race once it started. But with rain falling into the night, officials decided to call the race.

“Obviously, we all wanted to get the race in today, but this was the correct call,” series points leader Helio Castroneves said.